Meanwhile, the Democrats have been seeking to energize their base by inviting President Obama to a Northam rally, and most recently hosting an event in Scott’s Addition featuring Senator Kamala Harris and former Attorney General Eric Holder. The campaign has also been emphasising Gillespie’s ties to white nationalism, sending mailers that directly link the Republican candidate to President Trump and the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.

That’s not even mentioning the recent advertisement released by Latino Victory Fund showing a Confederate flag-flying truck with a Gillespie campaign sticker chasing minority children. While the ad was not produced by the Northam campaign, it was still met with heavy conservative backlash against the candidate.

The gap between the candidates has been tightening into single digits in recent polling. It isn’t much of a stretch to predict that this race will be a close one, and with both candidates differing on social issues such as reproductive rights, gun control, Medicaid expansion, and LGBTQ rights, the results of this race are bound to affect the lives of the majority of Virginians, especially those in marginalized communities.

College students are an important yet commonly overlooked part of the voter base. Democrat-aligned group NextGen America, however, is going so far as to obtain the contact information of more than 30,000 Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) students and sending them text messages encouraging them to vote for Northam.

An actual text message received by the author. Image captured by Ryan Persaud.

With the tension surrounding the gubernatorial election, RVA Mag decided to ask a variety of VCU students who they are voting for, and how they feel about the election as a whole.

Elias Hakim, a junior majoring in political science and a member of the Young Democrats at VCU, said he hopes Virginia chooses Northam over the bigotry and divisiveness he claims Gillespie represents.

“It has been very upsetting for me to see Ed Gillespie, who has marketed himself in the past as a moderate Republican, taking notes from Trump’s playbook by running a race-baiting and fear mongering campaign,” Hakim said. “I am cautiously optimistic for Ralph Northam, but I think that 2016 taught us all a very important lesson about predicting elections, and Democrats can’t afford to act complacently.”

Hakim said the national attention on this election has been exciting to him, claiming that many people see this election as a referendum in response to the election of President Trump.

“We have a choice to either follow the federal government down a path of bigotry and divisiveness, or we can continue to make progress as a Commonwealth despite what is going on at the national level,” Hakim said. “I’m hoping that Virginians choose the latter.”

A member of the College Republicans at VCU, who stated they were only allowed to speak as an organization and therefore remained unnamed, cites Gillespie’s economic plans as a major reason why they support him.

“Virginia is currently 39th out of 50 states economic growth,” the member said. “Knowing this, Gillespie is cutting back regulations and taxes that have stunted Virginia’s growth for a while.” The member went on to say, “As conservatives, we believe these changes will bring great prosperity and increased productivity to the state. He has also pledged to address problems such as the opioid epidemic and rising student debt.”

The member also criticizes Northam’s campaign, claiming the that candidate has only focused on the wealthier areas of Virginia.

“Ed Gillespie has visited every corner of Virginia, while Ralph Northam has stayed tied to his affluent donor base in Northern Virginia,” the member said.

Patrick Miller, a graduate student in VCU’s school of education and a member of the Young Democratic Socialists at VCU, said that he’s voting for Northam but is frustrated about the election as a whole.

“Northam is an uninspiring Democrat hack who happens to look good compared to someone as ghoulish as Gillespie,” Miller said. “I would not be surprised if the latter were to win, though I hope for the sake of my queer, femme, and undocumented comrades he doesn’t.”

Miller criticizes Northam’s environmental policies, and wishes the candidate would be more vocal about some of his more left-leaning labor policies.

“Northam’s environmental policy and pro-pipeline stance are frustrating to me, as is the way his moderate base scoffs at this frustration and considers it a ‘purity test,’” Miller said. “I wish Northam had gone after Gillespie for using racial dog whistles in his rhetoric far earlier than now, and that he could be more forthcoming about his anti-right to work stance and pro-$15/hr minimum wage stance.”

While these students are aware of the issues and the importance of this election, they unfortunately are not representative of all the students at VCU. RVA Mag walked around campus asking students what they knew about the election. Many of the responses were disheartening. One student was surprised by the terminology, stating, “You definitely just made up the word gubernatorial.”

Another wasn’t even sure when the election was, stating, “I heard something about that, I think I heard it’s on Tuesday.” Almost as if the election was a rumor floating around.

While some may wish the current political climate was only a rumor, it is a reality. It should go without saying that this election is critically important and that more students need to be aware. As a state university with the third largest student body in the Commonwealth, it’s depressing that some students know so little.

“I know the Democrat is Northman or something like that. Is there even a Republican candidate?”

These students’ obliviousness to next week’s election was not reflective of everyone spoken to. However, few knew much more than the candidates’ names and party affiliations. When we asked students if they were planning on voting next Tuesday many responded with, “Yeah, if I have time.” …meaning no, they will not.

Next Tuesday, all eyes will be on Virginia, and when these students don’t show up at the polls, they will be sacrificing their voice in the democratic process. If Gillespie wins and this liberal student body hits the streets in protest, you can bet those uninformed, non-voting students will be out there chanting, too.

Politics can be a pretty amoral game. Despite the constant rhetorical appeals to high-minded ideals, the order of the day where actual campaign tactics are concerned seems to be “if it hurts your opponent, do it.” Concerns about veracity and integrity come in second to scoring points, regardless of who gets hurt in the process.

And the sad part is: it works. The latest evidence can be found in Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ralph Northam’s declaration to Andy Fox of Norfolk’s WAVY-TV that he’d sign a bill banning sanctuary cities in Virginia if it came across his desk. “If that bill comes to my desk, Andy, I sure will. I’ve always been opposed to sanctuary cities. He knows that,” Northam said, referring to his Republican opponent, Ed Gillespie.

Gillespie’s been making a big deal out of sanctuary cities ever since this summer. Sanctuary cities are generally understood as localities which refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities in deporting undocumented residents. None currently exist in Virginia as of this writing, for the record. Nonetheless, the issue has remained at the forefront of the current gubernatorial race.

Gillespie has continually hammered Northam for a vote that took place this past February in the General Assembly. A bill to ban sanctuary cities came up to a vote, and when the result was a tie, Northam in his role as Lt. Governor was called in to cast the deciding vote. He voted against the bill, though a later vote ultimately passed it out of the General Assembly–at which point Gov. McAuliffe voted against it.

It’s a similar form of support that the Latinx community has been hoping to receive from Northam if he is elected as McAuliffe’s successor. However, Gillespie has continually turned up the heat on Northam where this issue is concerned. It began with an attack ad at the end of August that referred to “Ralph Northam’s risky policies” and specifically cited Northam having “cast the deciding vote in favor of sanctuary cities that let illegal immigrants who commit crimes back on the street.”

If that sounds like a misleading claim about what sanctuary cities actually do, you’re on the right track. As Randolph Macon Associate Professor of Political Science Rich Meagher wrote in a previous RVA Mag article, “What we call “Sanctuary cities” are not actually a real thing. Different localities commit to different levels of cooperation with immigration authorities throughout the Commonwealth.”

Gillespie MS-13 Campaign Ad

But the claim seemed to work in Gillespie’s favor, so much so that he went back to the well with a recent ad featuring the tattooed faces of MS-13 gang members above the words “Kill, Rape, Control.” Our own Political Director Landon Shroder called the ad “an obvious racist dog whistle” intended to “fear-monger in suburban and rural spaces by trying to make Northam look weak on crime.”

Latino Victory Fund fired back at all of Gillespie’s recent fear-mongering around the issues of sanctuary cities and undocumented Latin American immigrants with a recent ad depicting Gillespie supporters as Confederate flag-waving white nationalist terrorists. The ad may have been a bit “over the top,” in Governor McAuliffe’s words, but it seemed to strike a chord with Northam. Speaking to WAVY-TV, he said, “The MS-13 gang commercials against me have been very offensive to a lot of communities in Virginia, and so these communities have responded to that, and that is their right.”

It’s a fair point. But it wasn’t enough to keep LVF from bowing to negative pressure from Republicans and pulling the ad. And now, it seems to have pushed Northam into dropping his previous nuanced stance on sanctuary cities–that he never specifically supported them, that Gillespie was stirring up outrage around a fake issue, and that his February General Assembly vote was more complicated and less black-and-white than Gillespie made it seem. Instead, in the same WAVY interview, he came out for the first time and said that as governor, he’d sign the same sort of bill he voted against in the General Assembly less than a year ago.

Ta-daa! It worked. Gillespie hammered Northam on the overblown sanctuary cities issue until Northam finally caved and said what the Republicans want to hear. Rather than seeking the votes of young people outraged to see the harm Trump’s DACA repeal has caused their peers, rather than seeking to lock in the growing Latinx presence in Virginia by showing that he sees Gillespie’s racist fear-mongering for what it is, rather than giving other marginalized Virginians reason to believe that he will protect them, Northam has shown that for the majority of the voters who made up the celebrated “Obama coalition” and turned Virginia blue for the first time in nearly half a century, he’s going to be more of the same old same old.

If Northam’s unwillingness to stand up to Gillespie’s continued attacks is any indication, all young people, people of color, LGBTQ people, and other threatened minority populations can expect are vague reassurances, the occasional derailing of the GOP’s worst excesses, and a continued erosion of even the tiny victories these groups have worked for years to gain.

Issues like this one will make the difference in this election, and by failing to stand behind the vulnerable populations who ostensibly have the most to gain from a Democratic victory, Northam and the Virginia Democrats may very well seal their fate. Because let’s face it–uninspired people don’t worry too much about making it to the voting booth.

Just over a week remains before the November 7th gubernatorial election and nervous state Democrats have brought in big national names to stump for candidates Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam, Justin Fairfax, and incumbent Attorney General Mark Herring. Voter turnout, especially among young voters and people of color, seem to be the chief concern that brought Senator Kamala Harris and former Attorney General Eric Holder to canvass in Hampton Roads before their appearance at an intimate but crowded rally at Blue Bee Cider in Richmond’s Scott’s Addition this afternoon.

Packed House at Blue Bee Cider. Photo by Landon Shroder

Fairfax spoke first, apologizing for Northam’s absence and plugging Jackson Ward’s popular Mama J’s Kitchen where the group ate lunch. “If you go in there, ask them for the Senator Kamala Harris Booth,” he said to a round of applause. He gave an uncharacteristically brief speech before introducing Herring, who is seeking reelection.

Both candidates talked turnout, noting that Northam won almost as many votes in the Democratic primary as all of the GOP candidates combined. Herring used his personal experience as a former candidate to caution against complacency, reminding the crowd that he won by a tiny 907 vote margin following a recount in the 2013 election.

Attorney General Mark Herring. Photo by David Streever

Similar to the Northam rally with President Obama, the big draws were Harris and Holder, but many came out primarily to support the state candidates. Ariana Toussaint, 35, was there for both. “I feel like the trajectory of her career [Harris] is one to watch, and I’m here to support our democrats right now in the general election.”

She was positive about the ticket, but disappointed in the focus on President Trump and national issues. “I hope they’re going to talk more about unity within the group and us moving forward and not getting distracted by certain things coming out of the administration. I think we tend to get distracted and lose sight of the bigger picture, so I hope that’s something that will be brought up today.”

Photo by Allison MacEwen

Sean Gordon, from the Randolph-Macon College Young Democrats, has been watching the race and was excited to meet the national Democrats. “We’re coming here mostly to meet Harris and Holder, but we’re also here to see the energy of the Northam campaign because you kind of have to come to Richmond to see a lot of that.”

He was looking for a little more conflict than Toussaint was, saying he hoped Northam would combat what he called “racial taunting” by Republican candidate Ed Gillespie. “I think he will. That’s what we’re looking for here.”

Harris might have satisfied Gordon, taking the microphone after Herring to talk about the role of Virginia on the national stage. She cast the election as a referendum on the presidency of Trump, describing it as a chance to reject his actions. She and the final speaker, Holder, noted the importance of governors as a counter-weight to the legislative agenda of the Federal government, bringing up universal healthcare, the war on drugs, and the Dreamers in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Kamala Harris. Photo by Landon Shroder

Holder made other connections between local and national issues, talking about the Unite the Right march and President Trump’s refusal to condemn the marchers. “You can’t say there were very good people with the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. If you marched with neo-Nazis, you turned in that card.”

Former Attorney General Eric Holder. Photo by Landon Shroder

He echoed the theme of voter turnout, one-upping Harris and the others. “Don’t bring five friends to the polls, bring ten. Bring as many as you can. I want to see big margins, I don’t want to see 907 votes again.” It was a big applause line before the candidates exited, pausing for selfies as they pressed through a mob in the rain to the waiting cars.

Regardless of who wins, all eyes are now on Virginia, which has shifted from red to blue and emerged as a crucial battleground state in a deeply divided nation.

Earlier this morning President Trump tweeted in support of the Republican candidate for Governor, Ed Gillespie. In the first tweet Trump claims that Gillespie will “save our great statues/heritage.” This was preceded by a declaration that Gillespie will fix the economy and is “strong on crime,” a nod to Gillespie’s campaign message that his Democratic opponent, Lt. Governor Ralph Northam, is weak on crime by supporting sanctuary cities and the gang MS-13. There is no evidence to support this claim, and Northam has consistently refuted it.

In the second tweet, Trump says, “Ed Gillespie will be a great Governor of Virginia,” which was followed by “His opponent doesn’t even show up to meetings/work,” which is another talking point from the Gillespie campaign and was featured prominently in an early campaign video.

Gillespie has had an uneasy relationship with Trump, and has not been particularly active in seeking the president’s support. Nonetheless, his campaign content has taken on a decisively negative tone and is reflective of Trump’s overall messaging strategy. Given the closeness in the polls, the last of which had both opponents within the margin of error, along with all of the big names being pulled out on both sides, from Obama to Biden to Pence, a tweet from the president might have the ability to swing the vote one way or the other.

The Virginia gubernatorial race has finally succumbed to the full scope of negativity everyone probably expected. It was only a matter of time. Say goodbye to the genteel sport of Commonwealth politics, and say hello to the new political age everyone is currently suffering through. Not that Commonwealth politics have always been polite.

The last gubernatorial election season also saw it’s share of “nastiness,” according to a Time Magazine article from 2013: “A poll released Wednesday by the Democrat-leaning Public Policy Polling found both candidates suffering from underwater favorability ratings.” The article went on to say, “A day later, when both men spoke at a luncheon in Richmond about government transparency, they spent their time attacking each other. Cuccinelli challenged McAulliffe to 15 debates, instead of the agreed upon five… McAulliffe harped on Cuccinelli’s failure to disclose gifts and stock holdings in a Virginia dietary supplement company.”

Stock holdings in a dietary supplement company and conflict over the number of debates – the good old days. When Time Magazine felt comfortable saying, “It was just another day in what is shaping up to be the ugliest campaign in the country this year.” That was before the age of President Trump ushered in the political climate where Ed Gillespie, the Republican candidate for governor, could release his now-notorious “kill, rape, control” ad linking Democratic candidate Ralph Northam to the international gang MS-13.

The ad, replete with images of menacing tattooed gang members, is an obvious racist dog whistle. It was developed not only to fear-monger in suburban and rural spaces by trying to make Northam look weak on crime, but also as a way to signal Northam’s supposed support for sanctuary cities. Yet according to Randolph Macon Professor Rich Meagher, who wrote an editorial for RVA Mag on this very issue, “What we call sanctuary cities are not actually a real thing.” He went on to say, “Different localities commit to different levels of cooperation with immigration authorities throughout the Commonwealth.” Furthermore, according to the monitoring agency WOLA, gang violence conducted by MS-13 only represents one percent of the total levels of gang violence throughout the US and Puerto Rico – making the ad’s argument spurious at best.

Gillespie Attack Ad

Nonetheless, Gillespie followed up this opening salvo with another shot across the bow in a three minute video released on Facebook yesterday, wherein he complains that Governor Terry McAuliffe’s felon rights restoration program released a known sex offender. The video then pivots to Northam speaking about the success of the felon rights restoration program, while at the same time highlighting potential dangers with restoring felon rights such as their ability to sit on a jury, vote, or purchase a firearm. Northam spokesman David Turner responded to this attack ad from Gillespie by saying, “Since he has no positive ideas, he’s resorted to lying about Dr. Northam.” Turner concluded his response by saying, “It is a new low for him to accuse a pediatrician and children’s hospice medical director of favoring felons who have hurt children.”

The restoration of felon rights has been marquee legislation for McAuliffe’s administration and has been lauded as a success in the fight against the worst excesses of Virginia’s criminal justice system – one that sees communities of color disenfranchised at a disproportionate rate. The U.S. Sentencing Project specifies that “more than one in five African-Americans in Virginia are disenfranchised.” As with the “kill, rape, control” attack ad, Gillespie is sowing fear and being purposefully antagonistic to play on the worst racist fears of his suburban and rural base – a tried and true Trump strategy.

Democrats are now fighting back with campaign content of their own. Content which specifically links Gillespie and Trump to white nationalism and white supremacy. A Northam campaign mailer, reported on this morning by the Richmond Times Dispatch, said, “On Tuesday, November 7th, Virginia Gets To Stand Up…To Hate,” and shows both Trump and Gillespie hovering over the torchlit rally which took place the Friday night before the now infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville on August 12 – a torchlit procession that saw young white men chant “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil.”

Democratic Campaign Mailer. Photo Courtesy of Eric Wilson

According to the Washington Post, the backside of the mailer shows Northam, LT Governor Candidate Justin Fairfax, and incumbent Attorney General Mark Herring, with the message, “This is our chance to stand up to Trump, Gillespie, and hate.” While Gillespie did condemn the events in Charlottesville, saying, “Having a right to spew vile hate does not make it right,” the tone of his attack ads betrays a critical double standard. This is even more obvious when, only a day after the attack ad on felon rights restoration, Gillespie’s campaign manager released the following statement in response the mailer: “This is an ugly political attack that has no place in our Commonwealth’s political discourse. Ralph Northam should be ashamed to have approved such a hateful mail piece.”

Face palm.

Whoever gets elected, Virginia has now entered into the political age that has come to define modern America. What kind of damage this leaves in its path remains to be seen. Yet this kind of discourse not only betrays a lack of the civility needed to deal with the critical issues facing the Commonwealth, but continues to stress the social fabric that connects communities, cities, and regions throughout Virginia. Given this level of vitriol and its unintended consequences, the next governor will certainly have his work cut out for him putting the pieces back together again.

This short, two-minute quiz will match you to one of the three different governor candidates based on a series of 16 questions in three different categories. Questions were accumulated from a diverse range of topics on which candidates had made a stance, either on their websites or during public speeches.

Part of an effort to keep the public informed, this quiz forms a long track-record of keeping voters educated through greater transparency in Virginia politics. As they enter their 20th year, VPAP is the leading source for journalists, lobbyists and curious citizens looking for campaign donation information, corporate donations, and election tracking.

“I think understanding the mechanisms of how politics work is still tricky,” said Richard Borean, associate director of VPAP. “That’s one of the things we are trying to translate. Just having data in a way that’s more easily accessible and understood is a crucial component of that. Understanding what a lobbyist does and money in politics and media, all these different things, that’s very difficult to understand, but hopefully, we provide the information for people to investigate that a little further.”

Their primary mission is to ensure and protect transparency in politics throughout the Commonwealth and provide a simple way for people to access and consume information. While guarding transparency is their main objective, relating it to the public often proves their greatest challenge.

“We have all these things where we’re trying to push transparency in Virginia, but those are all on platforms where you’re getting 100 emails and notifications every day,” said Borean. “The struggle is having the resources to effectively communicate with people.”

Before VPAP, to acquire campaign finance information, a journalist would have to rifle through records in the filing cabinets of the State Board of Elections during business hours. David Poole, a former journalist for The Roanoke Times and founder of VPAP, was one of those frustrated reporters. However, with the advent of the internet, accessing those files became much more accessible, but not necessarily easier to decipher.

That’s how VPAP changed the game.

“I think there’s something to say about people in their 20s and 30s who grew up with technology, who sort of expect a certain level of access and transparency, who now have the ability to get it in a way that didn’t exist before,” said Borean. “I think that intersection between an aging millennial population along with a maturity of technology [contribute to VPAP’s success].”

To ensure this level of transparency, VPAP collects data sets and campaign finance reports from government sites and the State Board of Elections. This data then gets stored in a central database, which goes through a series of cataloging before it’s visually presented online in a way that best translates the information for the viewer. Although government websites are already essentially transparent, the information is often times presented in such a dense, convoluted way, it’s difficult for the average citizen to decipher.

“What we really try to do is take the data as it stands and make it visually digestible,” said Borean, when asked about how data is presented to VPAP’s readers. “It’s not so much trying to come off as nonpartisan, but how do we convey this information in an understandable way. I think it’s just in our DNA to be nonpartisan.”

That standard of nonpartisan information stretches across their site to VaNews, a newer component of VPAP designed to keep Virginians’ news balanced.

“For VaNews, [nonpartisan] means including clips from liberal and conservative publications,” said Ali Mislowsky, VaNews Coordinator, who also moonlights as the lead singer of local band Big Baby. “Sometimes people will be surprised things were included because we’re nonpartisan, but we think that means a balance of voices and clips. People might think that would mean excluding partisan clips.”

VPAP will also track data trends throughout campaigns, such as what types of corporations are donating to whom, how much is being donated, or for what things candidates are using that money. For example, this election cycle the number of small donations from individual citizens has skyrocketed thanks to Internet advertising, yet those donations still pale in comparison to the larger, corporate donors, such as Dominion. Yet despite this sometimes incriminating information, VPAP makes the effort to remain neutral.

“We’re not saying that money in politics is bad, or that it’s good,” Mislowsky said. “We’re just saying that it’s there.”